Hitherto, many knitted fabrics have been proposed in the fields of inner wears represented by underwear, sports wears, and the like. Since the knitted fabrics for the inner wears among them are directly brought into contact with the skins, excellent drape, bulkiness and water absorbability are required.
On the other hand, fibers comprising a fiber-forming thermoplastic polymer such as a polyester or a polyamide have been used in a wide range from clothing uses to industrial uses due to the excellent characteristics of the fibers. Polyester fibers among the fibers have widely been used as yarns constituting woven fabrics, because of having many excellent characteristics such as excellent fiber strengths, dimensional stability and easy care property.
However, there has been a problem that the drape of a knitted fabric has been deteriorated, when yarns comprising a fiber-forming thermoplastic polymer are subjected to a false-twisting and crimping treatment and then knitted into the knitted fabric to enhance its bulkiness.
Such the drape and the bulkiness are generally the mutually conflicting properties. For example, there has been a problem that the bulkiness of a knitted fabric has been deteriorated, when the knitted fabric is subjected to an alkali reduction treatment to enhance the drape of the knitted fabric or when twisted yarns are knitted into the knitted fabric to enhance its drape.
Additionally, the water absorbability of a knitted fabric formed from yarns comprising a fiber-forming thermoplastic polymer is usually insufficient. The improvement of the water absorbability has therefore been required.
As a knitted fabric having the water absorbability and the drape, a knitted fabric comprising multifilament yarns each comprising a plurality of flat W-shaped cross section shape-having filaments has been proposed in JP-A 11-222721 (hereinafter, JP-A means “Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication”).
However, such the knitted fabric comprising the multifilament yarns each comprising a plurality of the flat W-shaped cross section shape-having filaments has excellent water absorbability, but is still insufficient at the point of the drape.